Testing Manufacturers = Snake Oil Salesmen - Part 1...MyRant on Testing as it relates to The "BAD" Teacher Witch Hunt - OY!

Rants are great! It is where our greatest truths are expressed. Here is mine...

I've often compared the testing sales pitch to the selling snake oil... It's all about the pitch and how you package it.  Done right... people will buy the snake oil (er testing products).  They just will...

I think the teach-to-the-test-performance-pay-frenzy and "testing culture" tied to teacher evaluations is a big part of what is pitting teacher against teacher, demoralizing educators and conveniently demonizing our once trusted and respected profession to benefit education reform greed corporations. 

The culture and ideology that we can rate teachers via test scores was developed for one thing only... to make money for test manufacturers and those who tout school reform ("deform") due to the unlimited profits now available to them because education coffers can be ransacked by the private sector, thanks to crafty legislation that benefits the wealthy and at times the lawmakers themselves.  Should be illegal... right?  Of course!  But we do not get out the educated voter and those who do get out and vote.... keep voting these jokers in!!  

It's a unholy alliance and it is crafted to make good people believe that test scores actually determine the worth of students and teachers and schools. THEY DON'T!!!  

Can shrewd test salesmen actually convince intelligent legislators that the snake oil really works?  Or... Is this all just a money chain to the tip top that all involved are quite aware of and buying into and assisting it to continue??

There's my dilemma.... Can this primly packaged snake oil (er... standardized testing )actually appear to do what it is being touted to do?  Or are the politicians voting for it all on the take???  Hmmm?  That is what I lay awake at night wondering!!

They claim... All the world's educational problems will be solved when we buy millions of these tests, force students to take them, and find the "BAD" teachers whose fault it is that American schools do not out perform Finland!  Then, of course, we must give these "BAD" teachers their walking papers and hire new teachers who will agree when they are hired that their value hinges on student test scores a/k/a Pay for Performance Contract Teachers.

Of course, these eager young ones are usually not given the research discussing the invalid test scores, the discrimination of certain groups, of the mathematical impropriety of a thing called VAM!  LOL!  VAM?????

Who could come up with such Alchemy?  Only an individual or group of individuals who stand to gain by imposing such a ridiculous .

Good teachers outnumber teachers who need training by the vast majority. I've worked at many schools in three states and I have not seen a lot of "BAD" teaching going on. I see a lot of great teachers whose moral has been clobbered by a system meant to chase them out of the profession. 

Teachers who are not performing at a level of excellence can easily be identified by qualified and trained Principals and admins. I don't think we need standardized tests to find the teachers who need support! We need better qualified admins who are ready to do the work of cultivating great teachers! Let's shift the dialogue of those who are trying to devalue our profession and let's STOP trying to find the "bad" (er...teachers who need support) teachers via student test scores. Let's instead chase after and identify the "bad" admins who do not know how to hire and cultivate good teachers.

 Easy to do!

 But... the test makers will not get the hefty profits of the present... find-the-"gains"- or- fail- the-teacher-testing-system they are packaging and selling like testing snake oil to legislators and voters. It harms kids and teachers and is bringing our profession down to a joke. We are becoming test gamers and test monitors. That is not why any of us became teachers. 

We became teachers to touch lives, and inspire learning. That is not happening today in Florida or in Broward and I believe we must all stand against it.

Good admins know how to hire and cultivate excellent teachers. This is what we need to look for and help others to know how to do the same. The teacher which hunt has to end. To those ends I am committed.